hopping with the crafter's workshop

welcome! you've probably arrived here from leslie's blog, and are familiar with the hop, but let me tell you a bit about how i became aware of these fun stencils.

i'm so excited to share this layout today. at CHA this past july, i had the chance to play with julie balzer's new stencils created for the crafter's workshop. julie's fun and funky and her style shines through in these stencils. from geometric to faces to script, there's quite the range to inspire you. the booth had a huge table were we got to get messy, and we had fun! my tag won for one of the days, so i got to pick a few stencils. i've had a great time learning how to incorporate them into my scrapping style. as much as i'd like to be a messy artsy scrapper, it's just not me, but i can incorporate the techniques that i love. today's project was a big stretch for me, but i enjoyed the process and am very happy with how it turned out.

julie emailed me a few months ago, asking if i'd be interested in playing along on her series of stencil hops. i said of course, honored to be thought of as one who could use the stencils in a respectable way. the delightful jamie, from crafter's workshop, sent me the circles in squares stencil and the results of my playing with it are what i'm sharing with you today!

i embossed some kraft cardstock with ranger's seafoam white embossing powder, then i misted with maya mist's silver plated mist, some places got over misted... then i got crazy and tried a technique i'd learned from a tim holtz class, trying to remove the embossing by using a newspaper and iron. didn't really work. probably because i didn't use the clear embossing powder. and the newspaper stuck to parts of the image because i wasn't as deft in getting it heated and removed at the same time. i was ready to scrap it and start over. HOWEVER, in starting over, i kept looking at the rejected background and it started to appeal to me more and more. so i grabbed it, paired it with some jillibean soup paper and journaling spot, then i cut out some of the kraft so the red peeked through. i love how it turned out! the title is girls' paperie (miss that company) chipboard, and the journaling strips are a scrap i had in my recycling bin. 

the picture is my stunning daughter who is growing up too quickly for my liking, but i'm going to have to deal with it eventually. we've been encouraging her to go to college at BYU, about 8 hours away. both my husband and i are alumni of BYU and would love to see our kids be graduates as well. annie's not so sure she wants to leave home just yet. i wanted to assure her we aren't too keen on her going either, but we know it's going to be a good thing for her future.

thanks for stopping by my blog, i'll send you on to lisa's blog!

•   Leslie Ashe

•   Emily Pitts
•   Lisa Pace
•   Tammy Tutterow
•   Nathalie Kalbach
•   Julie Fei-Fan Balzer